The Thing in the Valley

Chapter 6: Nightmare Face

Disclaimer: Still don't own nothin'.

Heatwave and Chase met in the tunnels below the fire house. The walls hummed with the pouring rain, slightly damp to the touch, slipping to the floor in tiny beads. The air smelled fresh, alive, and Frankie never felt so happy to smell rain in her entire life.

Even the smell of rain, of escape from the tunnels, couldn't get her to let go of Chief Burns's hand when they exited Chase. Kade hopped out of Heatwave just in time for the two bots to transform into bipedal mode.

"I called Cody on the drive over," the chief explained, passing Frankie along to Kade. Frankie clutched Kade's entire arm, noticing Heatwave walk past them to stand by Chase. "He should be dressed and packed to go. I asked him to bring enough for him and Frankie."

"Where will they go once they're ashore?" Kade asked.

Charlie said, "I'll have Heatwave contact Optimus Prime to send Autobot reinforcements and send the kids along with him. There's a bunker under New York where they can stay until this has blown over."

"Mr. Burns?" Frankie asked. "Who's Opt-"

"Bigger problems, Frankie," Kade shushed her with a clipped command.

Just across the room, Heatwave couldn't find the words to say. His mouth gaped open uselessly, hands hovering in the air as if he could grab the information out of his chest and manually shove it into Chase's processor. What was he supposed to tell Chase? 'I'm abandoning all of you to the mercy of the un-living beast'? 'Good luck against the monstrosity'? 'Chief Burns is sending me away because I'm a coward'?

"Heatwave," said Chase plainly, "I acknowledge that you are both frightened and embarrassed by your fright. I am similarly shaken."

At least Heatwave had the opportunity to snark. He smirked, and Chase returned it with a tiny smile. "I can tell. You're just shaking like a leaf."

"I do admit I find the creature disgusting, but not truly horrifying." Chase placed a hand against Heatwave's arm, and Heatwave did feel the slight tremor in his friend's fingers. "I also admit that my interactions with civilians, children in particular, are lacking. My lack of skill in this regard makes me ill fitted for this mission."

He was going somewhere with his, he knew it. Heatwave nodded. "Your point?"

"Your fear makes you ill suited for the mission of capturing of the illegal machination at this time." Chase continued before Heatwave could flinch. "You are, however, perfectly suited for this interaction with civilian children. You must acknowledge this."

"So many long words just to tell me to cheer up." Heatwave pulled Chase into a tight hug, which Chase returned with his usual distant, but present affection. "I'll be back for all of you once the kids are safe."

"And we will be there for you, whether we are physically with you or not." Chase pulled away. "See you soon."

As small as it was, it made Heatwave feel much better to know Chase expected to see him again. He pulled back and transformed, letting Kade and Frankie into his cab and taking off towards the exit ramp. Chase and Chief Burns drove into the tunnels, the blast doors sealing off alongside them, leaving only one way out.

Deep in the tunnels, Boulder was still being tailed, now without Cody to keep the trail behind them broken and twisting. The thing matched their pace easily with its distended arms and legs, weaving through the corridors, just barely illuminated by its own optics and Boulder's tail lights.

Inside the cab, Doc Greene and Graham brainstormed for ways to switch off the monster. "Maybe if we bring it towards Griffin Crest once the island's evacuated?" Graham suggested.

"It is always our last resort," Greene stated. "But the island won't be completely evacuated for some time. Perhaps if I make use of Boulder's CB loudspeaker-"

Boulder nearly pulled a face when Doc grabbed for his loudspeaker controls, already on edge from keeping his engine running at top gear for so long. He was built for power and weight, not speed; his treads felt ready to snap from the strain. Doctor Greene cleared his throat and spoke.

"Experiment, shut down."

Its head shot forward from its neck, teeth filling the back window, scraping against the glass at it bellowed in anger. Graham and Greene jumped out of their seats, away from the teeth. While its head pulled away, the humans could not force themselves to sit down, leaning their weight against the dashboard.

Ahead, one of the tunnels was just lighter than the others, shining the gentlest blue, coming up on the right. "I see light!"

"Go towards it!" Graham ordered, pushing Boulder's steering lever. Doc Greene yelped and shoved the lever the other way, and Boulder locked up, treads catching on the ground for a terrifying half second that got the monster that much closer to them.

"Go away from it! We can't get let it outside!"

The blue grew more intense. Boulder pointed out, "Outside shouldn't be getting closer to us-"

The blue fell out of the corridor and became Blades, bleeding energon from his previous bout with the monster. As Boulder roared forward, unable to stop in time, Blades ran forward with his rotors spinning, sharp and vengeful, into the face of the beast.

Topside, the fire station was surrounded. Humans Heatwave had been before but never helped came in firefighter's uniforms, police colors, army fatigues, standing ready to take orders. They armed themselves with guns, lots of guns, none of the electroweapons or netting or non-damaging equipment the Rescue Bots were mandated to use. They ignored the heavy rain, how it blew sideways and whipped at their legs, how they were slowly soaking in it. They had come out of hiding to stop that monster, and the only thing keeping them at bay was Kade.

Kade jumped out of the door in mid stop and began shouting instructions to the crowd. They fell into the tunnel entrance in tight lines, all in step, Kade the last one in.

Kade nodded to Heatwave, giving him a hard pat above the headlight. "Trusting you with my baby brother, Heatwave."

Heatwave sent out a tiny pulse of energy that Kade probably couldn't feel. "Nothing will hurt him while I'm here."

They held that silence for a while until Kade's hair clung to his head, and he left, melting into the dark with his human kind.

Frankie, silent inside Kade's cabin, swallowed a dry lump in her throat. "You're alive... aren't you?"

Heatwave sighed and relented. "Yeah."

For as big a secret as that was supposed to be, Frankie did not react. He started straight ahead at Heatwave's steering wheel, hands flat against the seat, eyes vacant. "The other ones, too?"

Heatwave nodded through his console. "All of us."

Frankie distantly shrugged, her eyes far away, her shoulders shaking. "Well, at least you're human-looking and alive... you could be an angry, hungry robot dinosaur, I suppose."

Heatwave figured that was supposed to make him laugh. Cody appeared in the fire station doorway, fully dressed in his softest coat, scouting backpack heavy on his shoulders. Heatwave opened the door for him, not minding the rain that blew in from outside. "Come on, Cody. We have a ferry to catch."

Down in the tunnels, It screamed. Blades had taken off its arm twice, only for it to tear into the wall and reform it out of bits of wire and shrapnel. Even as he fought it now, for every piece of shell Blades sliced off, the thing would bite another chunk off the wall and fuse it to its body. Every small grapple with the beast resulted in a fresh wound against Blades's chassis. Without warning, It wrapped around Blades's back and jammed its arm into the base of his rotor, fingers wriggling and reaching into his deepest gears and motors. Blades shrieked in pain and tore away from its arm, the still-wriggling hand slowly worming its way into his systems.

While Blades feinted back, Boulder transformed and caught the monster by what had been his transformation cog, snapping its spine like a whip and cracking its head into the floor. Its face offlined from the shock, but only for a moment, while its legs splintered into a dozen tiny tentacles and wormed its way into the seams of Boulder's door. It pulled at the hinges in tight, quick jerks, slowly pulling the doors off while Graham and Doctor Greene cowered in the center of the seat, unable to move in the tight confines of Boulder's chest.

"High voltage electricity can be hazardous to human health!" Chase called to the humans inside Boulder. He broke into a full run, moving faster than Boulder even at his lowest speed, Charlie Burns safely out of harm's way in the back tunnels with the volunteers. His taser charged as he instructed, "Please keep your hands and feet away from metallic objects and alert an physician if numbness or a burning sensation occurs!"

The taser landed against the thing's spine. Electricity lit the tunnel in flaming white. The creature thrashed wildly, losing its grip on Boulder only to whip deep gashes into the Rescue Bots in its throes of agony. Chase disengaged the taser and bodily shoved Boulder towards the volunteers. "All unarmed humans together and under cover! This area will come under gunfire at-!"

It whipped itself into a tight coil, launching itself around Chase's neck.

Up in Griffin Rock, it was dead quiet. Houses were unlit, but tidy, the owners leaving without rush. Businesses were calmly locked down, some with covered windows to protect from storm damage. The holographic light posts had calmly turned themselves off in the power outage and were nestled into their docks comfortably, like birds coming in from a storm.

Heatwave almost felt snubbed again. All that work, his team's life in danger, and once again, Griffin Rock didn't care.

The only thing distracting him was watching Cody and Frankie organize their supplies for the long trip they were about to undertake. Currently they were arguing over who got the cherry red versus the pea-soup green toothbrush. Cody's purposefully lighthearted and childish banter broke Frankie out of her unresponsive state, got her to laugh a little now that she was out of danger. It made Heatwave feel a little better, as well. He still had to call Optimus Prime, a daunting task that loomed in his vision like a surgical drill. He'd have to admit his weakness to the leader of the Autobots...

Eventually. Right now, he had to bring the kids to the ferry.

Down below, bullets ricocheted and shattered. Humans took cover behind the wounded Chase, felled by a blow to the main hydraulic piston in his leg, alive but unable to move. The Thing in its struggles led Blades into the humans; when Blades switched his rotors off in realization, it pounced, crimping his body into the wall with the same metal-tearing bites it used to claim new skin, entombing him in the panels shoulder-first, rotors useless. Boulder, unable to release the humans safely, tried to fight back with wide punches and heavy steps and failed, falling to the ground as the thing wove itself around him, attaching a fraction of arm to a splinter of torso, trapping him in a net of shards and sinew and ribbing his cabin open through the glass.

It looked down upon Graham and Doctor Greene, eyes bright, searching.

Doctor Greene's thoughts flitted through his mind.

Never see my beautiful baby girl again.

If it wants me, it can have me, for the good of the Earth.

What was I trying to do, making that horrible thing?

Roaring, it let them go. It grabbed either side of Boulder's mutilated cabin and pressed down, folding the humans into their seats, trapping them. Shots fired again, aiming for its eyes and head; it began reweaving itself into a solid mass and jumped to the ceiling, beginning to squeeze through the panels upward.

Doctor Greene's thought hit him, and his heat stopped in his chest.

It didn't want him. It wanted Frankie.

Terror stole his voice, and Doctor Greene couldn't scream as The Thing escaped up into the town.

There was one ferry dock that lead to the mainland. It was always big enough, always had enough ferries to accommodate the townspeople whenever they had to evacuate, except for the weird days when they panicked and rushed the boats all at once. Most of the town had already calmly, quietly left, safely ashore in Massachusetts. There were only a few stragglers left; the not-quite-old-enough-to-be-hospitalized elderly, the remaining Corps of Engineers in charge of leading the rest of the evacuation, the Mayor, and his Wife, who couldn't decide what to bring ashore, so they brought everything they could fit.

"Now, dear, I know you're upset we couldn't bring the limo." Mayor Luskey winced at his golf clubs dug into his elbow, unable to turn his head for all the luggage in the car. "But we already know it doesn't fit on the ferry." A block of red appeared in Luskey's rear window, indistinct in the rain, and he complained to his not-listening wife. "Ugh, look at that. They can accommodate one of those consarned Rescue Bots, but they can't fit the limo!"

Heatwave didn't notice the Mayor and his Wife in their fancy little car. They were just a small smudge in his front vision, sensors addled by the heavy rain, his attention given almost entirely to the kids in his front seat and their manically energetic singing of campfire songs. It bordered on being a little creepy, but they needed all the smiles they could get, and he wasn't willing to take it from them.

The ferry was in sight, maybe half a minute away, less.

Mayor Luskey was on the loading dock, yelling at the captain to hurry it up, ahead of them.

The road cracked outward.

Heatwave slammed on the brakes hard, jostling the kids, at the crack bubbled and grew, breaking in a spider web, up and up. A curl of smoke, not smoke, too solid for smoke rose and fell from the wound in the road. The slithering smoke splintered into a wide root, a parody of a hand, and rose and rose. Chunks of metal caught, forced themselves up through the rubble, followed by a long string of teeth and an eye, bright white round dead eye, the head following behind it in an uphill flow. The rain highlighted its mangled for in a fine mist, masked it in the heavy downpour. It scraped against the asphalt, an unholy sound of jagged nails on chalk and crunching metal.

In maybe half a second, less, It grew out of the ground as a sickly weed. Parts no longer connected. It held itself in a form by bits of wire and tendons, sickly dark energon flowing through threadbare tubes. It held Its mockery of a face together only slightly better, keeping both dead eyes level with the Rescue Bot, hands planted into the ground. It wrenched itself, but could not slither against the stone.

It had found them.

Somewhere distant to Heatwave's ears, Mayor Luskey shouted and swore. Agonizingly close to Heatwave's heart, the children screamed in terror.

"It's gonna eat us!" shrieked Frankie. Cody couldn't make a sound, plastered to the back of Heatwave's seats, eyes not moving from It. Heatwave shuddered, brakes on hard, facing down It.

It wailed and snapped at them, neck extended to its fullest, half an arms length from Heatwave's windscreen. Frankie shrieked again, and Heatwave, without thinking, flashed his brights in the Its eyes.

It snapped back, repelled, coiled tight to attack but cautious. Heatwave and It stood their grounds, watching each other, taught and waiting.

Cody began to mutter, repeating himself in a manic prayer, "It won't move if I watch it won't move if I watch it won't move if I watch-"

It wouldn't. Not if Heatwave was more interesting. Judging by Its complete disregard for the panicking Luskeys behind It, he could manage.

"Cody." Heatwave ordered. "Frankie. Get out of my cab."

"WHAT?" Frankie screamed. "WHY?"

"Because you're going to walk right past it." Heatwave jiggled his seats just a bit, urging the kids towards the door. "It'll come after me, not you."

"But it didn't go after you guys until Blades tried to help me and Dad." Frankie voice broke into a tiny whisper. "I don't want you to get eaten, I just met you."

"We'll catch up after. Go."

"Oh for crying out loud, there's kids in the Rescue Bot!" Mayor Luskey jumped out of his car just as the two children were exiting, throwing aside his golf clubs, portable DVD players, and neck pillows. "Sweetie, make room! We're going back for them!"

It perked at the Mayor's words, neck shifting slowly at the base to meet his-

"Don't even think about it, monster!"

It roared, mouth opening and opening until its head was nothing but teeth, all its fury directed at Heatwave. It squirmed in its stone trap, wires popping against the snagged bits of road. Heatwave transformed once Cody and Frankie were clear, turning up the brightness on his optics so It had something to look at. It brightened its eyes to match, energon flowing upwards into its head, eyes on him.

Cody and Frankie began to walk a wide circle, an imaginary line Frankie calculated to stay out of range of its neck.

Mayor Luskey pulled the car around, doors thrown open and arms outstretched, ready to catch up the kids and run.

Heatwave growled. "You should not exist."

It hissed at him, but didn't struggle, only quivered in place. Static electricity crackled from its tiny puncture wounds, bleeding energon dispersing in the rain.

"You should not be." He found his voice gaining volume as he spoke. "You were thrown together at the last minute out of parts we threw away! Cobbled up with the doctor's junk and our medical waste!"

Cody and Frankie stepped a little farther out of Heatwave's reach, and one optic followed them. The body made no move to catch them up. Heatwave shouted back to It, "I can't believe I was every afraid of you."

He laughed one loud bark, suppressing a manic giggle deep in his chest. It squirmed in its place, spooking Cody and Frankie to jump to the side. They kept moving, though, and Heatwave kept speaking.

"I can see bits of myself in you. You've got my broken neck, Boulder's corroded t-cog. You've got the Greene's trash pile practically written all over you. You're not anything to be afraid of, you're just parts."

Heatwave could feel his fear melting away, and then... then the kids passed its blind spot, and its face split down the middle, one half following the children, the other half trained on Heatwave. The half-face screamed on Heatwave's side, its once-dominant roar choked and spluttered out of a fractured voice box. Its energon

The Rescue Bot snarled and shouted, angry at the world for letting this thing exist. "You are all the worst parts of us and the humans! I wonder if you know that. My people, even the most hideous and monstrous of us are born with a divine spark from Primus himself, and you... you don't even have a name."

It barked, and in that shredded bark was a word. Heatwave didn't hear the word, refusing to, too confused to retort. Cody and Frankie stopped in place, nearly past Its shoulder, flinching.

Heatwave could only ask, "What?"

The Thing gurgled and coughed, and through for of will, spoke, "Iiiiiiiitt."

"Well... what do you know..." Heatwave snarled. "It talk itself to talk."

Cody and Frankie were at its shoulder blade. The Mayor's wife started the car. Luskey, soaking wet, stood ready at the car door, arms open.

Heatwave had to make It die. "It want a cracker? Or would It rather have a working face?"

It wrenched free an arm, and Heatwave dove for it. It caught his punching hand in a coil, spilling its tainted energon over his fingers, but the distraction worked. From his sensors, Heatwave felt the kids rushing into Mayor Luskey's arms and car and peeling away for the boat. The kids were safe. That was important. His mission was done.

It fought against him at every step. It was like fighting a fire hose, every moment wild and random, powerful but without thought. It screamed, and It aimed its screams directly into Heatwave's ears, sending his sensory system into shock and cutting precious seconds out of his response time. It tied off his vital energon veins and squeezed, digging into his shell and sawing off sections of armor. He felt its face open sideways and close around his head in a mockery of a mouth, tongue lashing against his teeth, ready to scoop into his throat and tear out his tanks.

Chase flew from the ground and punched it in the eye.

It was a well-ordered flurry of limbs. Chase pinned It down at the hip, Blades chopping off its arms at the root of the shoulder, Boulder stomped down on its neck with a wide foot. Pressing It down into the upturned concrete and earth, Heatwave instinctively tore at its torso, delving deep into its vital systems to shut it off for good.

Lying at the center, in a human battery core, was a fledgling spark. It shined, not in the natural blue of all Cybertronian life, but in the sickly violet of Dark Energon. It lurched and guttered in its casing, half wanting to escape and half wanting to snuff itself out. For only a moment, Heatwave felt horror, real horror, that this thing was beginning to be alive, sentient, aware of itself maiming and destroying...

Without thinking further, he closed his fist around the spark and squeezed.

It burst in his hands, oozed out through his fingers, and fizzled harmlessly into the soil. It simply stopped, locking in place, unmoving. Its eyes became flood lights again.

Lightning flashed, and thunder followed three seconds later.

Heatwave fell to the ground, arms around his friends, optics cast to the thing lying under them, dead.